【Aging, safety net and fiscal crisis in Japan】No.179:The 2018 unemployment rate stood at 2.4%

According to employment statistics released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in February 2019, the 2018 unemployment rate stood at 2.4%, which is second only to 2.2% in 1992 (Figure 1). The rate is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed by the total workforce. The unemployed are those who meet the following three requirements:

(1)Those who were not working during the employment statistics survey.

(2)Those who can start working immediately if they find a job.

(3)Those who were looking for a job during the employment statistics survey.

Of the total unemployed, those who have not found a job for more than a year are called long-term unemployed people. Their number had reached 1,230,000 in the first quarter of 2010 due to the 2008 Lehman shock (Figure 2). In the fourth quarter of 2018, the number stood at 550,000.

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications